


Solitary

by SnowyWhisper



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Outer Senshi - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:09:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24116302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnowyWhisper/pseuds/SnowyWhisper
Summary: On a sleepless night, Setsuna reflects upon her past and present, as well as people that are close to her.
Kudos: 15





	Solitary

In the dead of night, time stood still.

Soft moonlight illuminated the mansion’s roof, shared by four celestial beings, all but one asleep. It was nearly three in the morning and Setsuna was awake, sitting on her bed, occasionally sipping from her green tea. In the deep silence she is aware of every single object there, aware of every single life form, seen or unseen. Aware of herself, a Sailor Senshi, temporarily using an earthly body, allowing her to enjoy the warm, comforting taste and scent of her tea.

Five years had passed since the battle with Galaxia and the Earth had not faced with a major threat since then. Sometimes, she or her housemates sensed evil beings here and there, and they took care of it themselves without much trouble. They took care of minor inconveniences happily so that the Inner guardians and the Princess could have a peaceful life, until the time comes for the new Crystal age. Until then, the princess and the prince were allowed to live as normal people.

The prince… Setsuna smiled. It did not yet feel quite right, to call him, Mamoru Chiba, Prince Endymion. Not yet, she thought. She knew him for what he will become, centuries ahead from now, and she saw Mamoru in the present as a seed, who will blossom into the mighty and beautiful King when the time came. Usagi as well, she thought. Just thinking about Neo Queen Serenity was enough to restore her spirits, and fill her with strenght and joy. She will blossom in time as well, Setsuna thought.

In time.

Her mind connected to her Garnet Orb, so she could observe the gate of Space and Time, making sure there were no trespassers. A part of her soul still lied there, the place of her eternal duty, while her consciousness could experience life as Setsuna on Earth, in this moment.

Moment.

Her heart clenched with gratitude. How many endless moments had she spent at the Gates, in her solitary duty, watching the lives of others from afar and not being able to join? How many moments she feared eternity, and then endured the guilt of resenting her fate? Thinking back now it awed her. How had she been able to endure such complete loneliness? Not being rejected but others, but not even being _known_ by them, while she could watch and know them herself, and even love them?

Love _him._

Setsuna adjusted her pillows, her tea was over, but now her mind was in need of indulgence, longing for the memories of her own soul, her past and future. She had loved him, the future King, in her _past_ and present, in her _eternity._ During centuries of watching him from afar, she had known the dephts of her own heart. Had she not felt the love, could she have the same endurance, same sanity? Or if her love had not been so untainted, if, she had not also loved Serenity, so jealousy or resentment never once reached her heart, could she have remained the same solitary guardian?

Without her love, she could have faded away, or worse, could have fallen into Chaos. She knew it had happened to other senshi, those who cannot deal with the burden of their duties, slowly giving themselves up to temptation, to darkness.

She chased away those thoughts. It was no good to delve into such things in the dead of night.

But the night was slowly fading out, soon the new day would begin, another ordinary day with her family of kindred spirits, the blessing of the Moon. Moments of family, moments of not-eternal- loneliness. Moments shared with the ones, who understood, who had shared the same burden of loneliness as her and had endured it all the same, with the love that came from the dephts of their souls, the love of the moonlight.

Hotaru.

She was now a young adult, a pale but striking beauty with shoulder length raven hair, and dark eyes reflecting eternal eternities spent in utter solitude, and she had not endured it with love too, because her fate as Saturn has been of rejection, fear, isolation. She could not love up until this age, then she too was blessed by the love of the moonlight, and the soldier of destruction was not to be excluded anymore.

She never told anyone, but of all of her friends, Setsuna felt the most grateful to having known Hotaru. She loved Usagi and the Inners so completely and eternally because she had known them in her future, always have watched them, longed to be a part of their group, longed to be known by them. Her wishes were granted, as well as the honor to fight by their side, as their ally. Haruka was the kind of comrade she did not find most harmonious with herself, but that also was perfect in a way, their different natures complimenting each other, accepting one another unconditionally. Michiru shared her sense of melancholy, the experience of being on earth but not from it, feeling out of place time to time. Haruka and Michiru, though, she sometimes thought them as one single entity. A well deserved prize for them, Setsuna thought. An award for being honorable soldiers for almost an eternity, they could now bond in a physical plane, sharing a love so deep that it justified the time they spent in solitude.

Hotaru, on the other hand, was the one she felt the closest to, and more so, she felt understood by her, and recognized as who she really was. As forbidden guardians, both of them served for centuries, unaware of each other’s presence, until they met on that fateful day when the Silver Millenium collapsed. Pluto remembered the look in Saturn’s eyes back then. She was not how she imagined her to be, not even close. She had pictured a grim reaper, a malicious creature, longing for destruction and decay. What she saw instead was a slender figure, with an aura as old as time itself, slowly raising her silence glaive, with no rush, waiting. Waiting for the fateful moment.

Her eyes. They had not been malicious. They did not long for destruction or pain. Instead of a grim reaper, Pluto had seen a solitary senshi, with the heaviest cross to bear. Someone who accepted her fate as the bringer of Silence completely, and did not fear or resent her duty, but respected it, understood its significance. As she brought down her silence glaive, Pluto had heard herself scream. Uranus and Neptune screamed as well. But she was silent. She allowed the destruction with complete indifference.

Indifference and dignity.

Thousands of years later, she saw the same look of divine indifference in Saturn’s eyes again, this time on Earth, during the battle with Pharaoh 90, in which Setsuna remembered herself being paralzyed with awe in her sight yet again, and having no choice but to obey to seal her away, while screaming on the inside because she did not want Saturn to disappear, she wanted to look into her eyes, to talk to her and get to know her.

Her wish had been granted yet again. She got to raise her as her daughter.

Since she regained her memories, Setsuna knew what friendship really meant. How well two souls could connect, that even a moment of real connection could justify moments of loneliness. Hotaru knew her burden, her eternal duty as a senshi, so well as her own, and when they were together they did not fear eternity. Their eternal loneliness had been over, now there were new eternities ahead, and they would gladly welcome it together. No burden was too heavy to carry anymore.

A gentle ray of sunlight found its way to Setsuna’s room. She had spent yet another sleepless night, but did not feel tired at all. She raised, and heard soft footsteps outside her room. Someone knocked the door, and Setsuna knew well who that was.

Hotaru had always been an early riser.

“Good morning”, the raven haired girl mused softly, realizing quickly that the other woman had not slept at all. She was carrying two mugs ( they were a gift from Usagi, one was shaped like a black cat, the other one, white) “I got carried away and made too much coffee.” Hotaru explained, offering the white mug to Setsuna. She thanked her, her mind still filled with her memories from thousands of years ago. As the senshi of time, the present moment included the past and future together for her, and that made almost every experience much more intense.

Right now Hotaru was her earthly self, she had the habit of blocking Saturn most of the day, to not feel her burden while carrying on with her everyday life. But sensing Setsuna’s mood, the young woman’s eyes changed slightly. The dark eyes suddenly seemed older, wiser, harder and softer at the same time. “You wandered away again, didn’t you?” Hotaru said, before taking a sip from her morning coffee, while not breaking her eye contact. Setsuna allowed her to stare into her soul, not feeling a slightest resistance. Only with her she let her guard down completely, making herself, the mysterious Setsuna, unveiled.

She did not need to answer to that. She only nodded, closing her eyes, suddenly aware that her body did require sleep, like any other human being. She considered sleeping for a couple of hours, since it was Sunday and Haruka and Michiru would probably not wake up until noon. As she lied down, Hotaru had picked an old book from her drawer, which she realized was the collected poems of Yeats. Setsuna had read from those to little Hotaru, not so long ago. Now the young woman did not have to open the book for she had known the poems by heart.

She murmured to herself, “When you are old…”

The familiar poem instantly eased Setsuna’s mind, slowly silencing the memories. The long haired woman yawned softly.

So Hotaru sat by her side, recited the same poetry which was told to her by her adopted mother herself, and she was simply returning the favor for many peaceful nights she had as a child.

Time stood still in the morning shared by two kindred spirits, one drifting to sleep in peace, the other eventually silencing, before leaving the room of her fellow senshi.


End file.
